


Slogans

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: But they're learning, F/M, Fluff and Feels, Jyn is not good at emotions, Jyn tries to express how much Cassian inspires her, Memories, also she may have just inadvertantly invented the concept of merch, and a bit of angst but just a bit, neither is Cassian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 08:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15020651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Jyn makes an impulse purchase in a small market, and finds herself trying to explain to Cassian how much he has inspired her, and how much his words on Jedha meant to her, when for so long she'd been unable to allow herself hope.





	Slogans

They’re coming away from the meet-up, with a good new Intel contact and the cheering thought of a new supply chain on the back of it.  The contact is in the footwear and utility fabrics business here on Garel, and that means webbing and synth-weave, helmet straps and flight suits, backpacks and satchels, leather belts and holsters and good stout boots.  Boots!  There’s not a soldier in the Alliance who isn’t going to be pleased at the prospect of new boots.

Jyn is marching along close by his side, and when he glances down at her she’s grinning happily to herself.  The tips of her front teeth show when she smiles that way, feral and joyful.  Her warm arm brushes against his again; she looks up at him abruptly and her smile widens.

(And how is it that they are still doing this, still alive and serving their cause when they’d thought to die saving it, still reading one another without even looking, still touching, still sharing these bright looks?  How is this thing still able to make his heart skip, after more than a year?  He feels sometimes as if it’s the first day, and the miracle is only just beginning).

“Boots!” Jyn says. “New boots!”

“New boots,” Cassian agrees.  As so often, their thoughts going side by side just as they are.  He catches himself breaking into an idiotic smile of happiness, looking down at her.  Hesitates, aware, and then allows it, and lets it warm him like the sun once more.  No harm in this much, surely.  Anyone passing will just see two lovers _having a_ _moment_.  The best disguise is a partial truth; and that is a part of their truth, now.

Then Jyn’s eyes slide past him and she says “Ooo” in a bright distracted voice.  She squeezes his arm. “Look!  Fabric printers!”

“Huh?”

She’s pointing at a stall on the corner of the market, almost into a side alley.  The stall-keeper, a cheerful yellow Rodian, is demonstrating some kind of handheld gadget on – a customer’s shirt?

“Had one of those for a while on Zaktensis,” Jyn says. “Used to make undershirts with things printed on the front.  Like _I love you_ or _Surprise me.  Kriff off._   That was a good seller.  Made a living for several months with that, till I – had to move on.”

He doesn’t ask for more of the story.  Generally they all had the same pattern, these glimpses of Jyn’s life alone; she’d get settled somewhere, get or make some kind of work, and then take exception to something, usually an injustice of some kind, take someone on or get into a fight, and draw attention to herself; and then she’d have to vanish before things could get out of hand.  It seems to have happened rather a lot.

He nods, and she gives a little toss of laughter, unhurried and unbuttoned.  Jyn relaxed and happy in public is still a rare sight and one he relishes.

She moves away from his side, threading over through the bustle of shoppers and stalls, to the Rodian, and for a moment Cassian imagines she’s going to reappear with _Kriff off_ \- or worse - written on her sleeve.  They’re in civvies, so it isn’t technically defacing Alliance property, though the Quartermasters’ team may be a little thrown if -

But though she debates intently with the stallholder and eventually hands over a credit chip with a broad smile, there’s no printing going on.  Instead, the Rodian takes her back to the stall, talking animatedly and waving their arms; and when they finish their discussion a moment later Jyn has another printer under her arm.  They shake hands and Jyn turns away, patting her purchase happily.

Cassian raises a curious eyebrow at her when she re-joins him.  “What are you gonna do with that?”

“Print stuff.”

Visions of random expletives peppered around _Home One_ ; on the walls, on their bedding and equipment, on his socks…  There are people in the Alliance who don’t have much sense of humour, and - “Jyn, no.”

“Jyn, yes,” says Jyn.  Her smile is fond as she holds the printing device and runs her fingers over its settings panel. “I can make things for friends.  Hey, maybe even start a clothing line we could sell on the quiet on sympathetic worlds.  Shirts with slogans, or _Pilot_ and _Hero_ and _Rebel_ and the Starbird pattern, stuff like that.  I could make underwear for Luke Skywalker with _Jedi Primeday_ , _Jedi Centaxday_ and so on printed on them.”

“Are you serious?”

“Maybe not the underwear.  But – slogans.  Bet lots of people would like to own something with _The Force is with me_ written on it.  They’d make great gifts.”

He isn’t sure what to say.  This is the first time she’s shown any sign of wanting to use anything from her rough-and-ready entrepreneurial past in the Alliance. 

But there’s a market for posters, after all.  There are some very talented artists designing material for the PR team, and their recruitment flyers and morale-boosting images can be found stuck on the walls of many a dorm or bunk-room on the flagship.

“It’s – an interesting idea, Jyn.”

“Yeah.  Well, maybe.  Or how about _Rebellions are built on hope_?”

She’s looking up at him again, and her expression is half eager, half braced to rein-in and shut-down. 

_Rebellions are built on hope._   He remembers saying it to her, off-the-cuff but for all that still the truth at the core of everything he does.  In another marketplace, not unlike this one, a year and some weeks past.  _May the Force be with the million dead of Jedha, may they have rest and know peace and light_ … “You think that would sell?”

“Okay, maybe I was being a bit frivolous about selling them.  But gifts.  Really.  It’s a good slogan.” Jyn’s looking up at him as they walk, and though her mouth is still smiling the creases round her eyes are flattening out as her enthusiastic beam fades into something more considered, and then uncertain.  She isn’t stroking her new purchase anymore; or watching where she’s going.  He puts an arm round her shoulders, hugs her close; offering reassurance and steering in one, he hopes.

“Cassian…”

She breaks off, and he waits.  It isn’t fair to prompt or predict someone who still sometimes finds words a wall between her and her truth.  When it’s serious, always when it’s serious. 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever said this.  I mean, I know I haven’t.  It’s – you know.  When you said that to me.”

“Rebellions are built on hope?”

“Yeah.  It – it meant a lot.  It meant such a lot.”  She slides her arm carefully round his waist, a light pressure, not gripping at all but there, just touching him.  As if she wants to be close, but can still pull away at a second’s notice. “It – you know, Saw used to say _Rebellions are_ this or that, all the time.  But never hope.  He just didn’t talk about hope.  I don’t think he liked the idea, he called it –“ Jyn scrunches her nose for a moment and frowns – “ _nebulous_.  And after he dumped me – I couldn’t even think about it.  It was like, there was no such thing.  All those years.  Surviving.  And I did, I survived, but –“ the arm embracing him tightens for a moment and slackens again reflexively.  She’s looking forward resolutely now, no longer likely to walk into a wall or a passer-by but no longer meeting his eye, either.  “Well.  Anyway.  Then you; and you glared at me and you didn’t want to trust me and you thought it was a bad idea that I was there, but – you just said that, like it was obvious, like it was the daylight or something.  Rebellions are built on hope.  I – it was like being given something that I’d forgotten existed, something I needed.  Oxygen.  I wanted to push it away so much, stay where I was, not have to - but – yes, like oxygen.  I don’t know, I’m making a mess of explaining this.  It – it meant a lot.”

She still isn’t looking at him. “I – I looked up to Saw, so much, when I was little.  And I recognised the feeling, when you said that, the feeling of looking up to someone.  You were – you were so inspiring.  I don’t even know if you meant to be, but Force alive, Cassian, you were!”

Inspiring.  He swallows.  She’s such an inspiration to him, it’s a jolt to hear the idea coming back like this.  He fumbles out “It was just – it’s just - a thing I say.” No, he has to qualify more than that, because it is more than that. “It’s the truth, it’s the truth to me.  No matter what, if I can’t do anything else I’ve always tried to hold on to that, to – to give hope, to keep hope alive.  But – I didn’t think – inspiring?“

“You were and you are,” Jyn says; and suddenly stops in her tracks.  His momentum brings him round slightly as he halts too, and they are standing on a street corner facing one another. “I don’t think I could have done anything without you.  No, that’s not true, I would have – survived.  At least for a while more.  Maybe not on Wobani –“ - a hard momentary frown, Wobani is one of the memories she never talks about – “but if I’d got away…  But - found the truth again, found what mattered to me and why and who I really am because of it? and – and – all of it – hope – without you - I – I don’t know if I ever would have.” Her face is almost fierce as she looks up at him, and both her arms are round him now, the printer in her hand thumping him in the kidneys as she holds him close, as her voice goes on, soft and insistent and sure. “You are the one who inspires me, Cassian.  You’re my light and my hope, okay?” Her jaw is tight, as if she’d like to trap the words in her mouth now, but it’s too late, they’ve been spoken. “And I’m going to shut up now,” she finishes quietly.

Cassian bends his head, lays his forehead against hers.  Wraps both arms round her tightly and never wants to let go.  How can he say anything to honour such a compliment, and such an honesty?  Except – “And you’re – you’re a light to me, too.  It – it goes both ways.”

Jyn’s grip tightens and her feels her sigh against his throat at the familiar phrase; another memory, another moment when they first began to understand one another from nothing. No-one trusts a spy or asks for their trust, not once they know what they’re dealing with. “Would you mind if I put it on a shirt?” she says. “Just on my own shirt, maybe?”

“Of course not.  And – would you put something on a shirt for me, too?”

“What would you like?”  As they lean apart for a moment he can see her beginning to smile again, and the creases round her eyes deepening warmly.

“Trust,” he says.

“Just that?  One word?”

“Just that.”

The things they gave one another.  So much more than slogans.

**Author's Note:**

> It occurred to me that I've often written Cassian considering how much he admires and feels blessed in Jyn, but much less often the other way around. Not so much that I don't think she feels the same way, as that I think a) he would be more self-aware about it, as a side-effect of his spy-training b) he'd have rather more of the framework and the vocabulary to articulate it, and c) she is pretty unsure about expressing herself, particularly over serious matters, and I think for a long time she would struggle to talk about her feelings.  
> But she's too smart not to be aware that meeting Cassian was the thing that saved her from the darkness, and to know how profoundly meaningful his choices, words and actions were in her life.


End file.
